Transcription

Contents

Biography

He was born Saul Feldman in Brooklyn, New York, on September 12, 1910, and his mother's maiden name was Sowalski.[3] Edward Fields, a carpet manufacturer, and Freddie Fields were his brothers. Their father died at the age of 39.[4]

Fields was at a soda fountain when his wife was blowing bubbles into her soda through a straw, and that sound became his trademark that opened each of his shows.[5][6] A contest was held in Chicago for fans to suggest a new name for the Fields band, in keeping with the new sound. The word "rippling" was suggested in more than one entry, and Fields came up with "Rippling Rhythm."

In 1941 Fields revamped the band into an all-reeds group, with no brass section, known as Shep Fields and His New Music, featuring vocalist Ken Curtis.[8][9] From February, 1943 to August, 1944, guitarist Joe Negri worked with the band. Fields reverted to "Rippling Rhythm" in 1947.

References

^"Big-band leader Shep Fields dies". Chicago Tribune. February 24, 1981. Retrieved 2010-05-16. Bandleader Shep Fields, 70, who rose to fame in the big-band era with an orchestra that opened its performances with a sound called Rippling Rhythm, died Monday of a heart attack.

^"Shep Fields". Washington Post. July 12, 1957. Shep Fields admits that his wife, Evelyn, was responsible for the bubbling water through a straw sound that has identified his music for a score of years.

^"Patriotic Notes". Time. November 4, 1941. Retrieved 2010-05-17. Dedicator was Bandleader Shep Fields, who lately gave up his trade-mark "Rippling Rhythm," threw out his brass, concentrated on nine saxophones.

^"Shep Fields, Leader Of Big Band Known For Rippling Rhythm". New York Times. February 24, 1981. Retrieved 2008-06-23. Shep Fields, the band leader who made his fame and fortune in the 1930s and 40s with a unique sound he called Rippling Rhythm, died of a heart attack yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 70 years old. Mr. Fields developed the Rippling Rhythm sound in 1936 when he ...

^"Shep Fields Dies. Was Bandleader". United Press International in Hartford Courant. February 24, 1981. Bandleader Shep Fields, who rose to fame in the big band era with an orchestra that opened its performances with a sound called Rippling Rhythm, died Monday of a heart attack. He was 70.

^"Died". Time. March 9, 1981. Retrieved 2008-06-23. Shep Fields, 70, bandleader who was known during the 1930s and '40s for his Rippling Rhythm, a bubbly blend of light, catchy orchestrations and the sound made by blowing through a straw into a bowl of water near the microphone; of a heart attack; in Los Angeles.

^"Musician, arranger Lou Halmy dies at 93". The Register-Guard. March 22, 2005. Retrieved 2010-05-16. Halmy was born in Budapest, Hungary, and his family immigrated to the United States when he was 2. He made his mark as a trumpet player with East Coast outfits including Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra, a society band that played on The Woodbury Hour With Bob Hope and in The Big Broadcast of 1938, a film starring Hope, W.C. Fields and Dorothy Lamour.

^"Great Depression a gold mine for musicians". The Register-Guard. February 15, 2002. Retrieved 2010-05-16. When trumpet star and jazz arranger Lou Halmy looks back on the Great Depression of the 1930s, it doesn't seem depressing at all. 'I was lucky,' the 91-year-old Eugene musician says. 'I was playing with a band and working all the time. We had a steady job, which was the rarest thing in music.' While many people were standing in bread lines and living in shanty camps, Halmy was inside New York's posh Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, cheering people up by playing his horn in one of the most popular dance bands of the era: Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm ...

Washington Post; January 17, 1939 "Los Angeles, January 16, 1939 (United Press) Mrs. Myra Wallace, wife of a music publisher, learned tonight the $10,000 banknote which she tossed to Shep Fields, orchestra leader, for playing one her favorite numbers might be legal -- not stage money as she had thought."